Clean It Up

UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Clive McDonald on July 19, 2009, 09:41:55 pm

Title: Bank charge solution
Post by: Clive McDonald on July 19, 2009, 09:41:55 pm
I think i have cracked the problem of being charged for cheques with abbey.Open a business reserve account and this gives you another hundred a month.
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: Clive McDonald on July 20, 2009, 08:14:49 am
I was wrong.

Or more correctly the idiot in the branch was. You do not get a card and therefore cannot pay cheques directly into the account.

sorrry about that
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: ok cleaning on July 20, 2009, 08:35:32 am
of course you can just go and have look again when you wonna deposit money or chques there are two account no s choose from one for regular the other for reserve account just choose the one you want to deposit your means simples
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: Clive McDonald on July 20, 2009, 08:43:13 am
I may be wrong again and you may be right but...

What he said on the phone just was that there was no avoiding the 100 cheques thing and they had to go into the biz account first and then into the reserve, now called a business saver account.

I want to be wrong about this because i would like to avoid the charges.
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: leapstallbuildings on July 20, 2009, 09:22:40 am
You need to get the accounts linked so that when you deposit at the ATM, you get a choice of which account the payments go into.  Mind you, I've no idea if they add up the number of cheques into each account to get the total.  I only ever deposit directly into the main account and have never yet exceeded 100 in a month.
BEWARE !!   Abbey seem to have a glitch whereby they miscount the cheques.  They've tried to charge me twice now in error.  Also, the accounting month starts on the date in the month when you started the account - NOT the 1st of the month necessarily.
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: Alistair@AWC on July 20, 2009, 10:43:37 am
Or just open a free Alliance & Leicester Business Account - No cheque limit!
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: Ravensford on July 20, 2009, 11:18:09 am
Or just open a free Alliance & Leicester Business Account - No cheque limit!

I think there is after the 'free' period ends?
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: Sunshine/Cleaning on July 20, 2009, 11:32:55 am
We are with A&L cheques ARE free no limit, no time limit.
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: Alistair@AWC on July 20, 2009, 11:35:02 am
Sunshine is right, there is no time limit!
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: scud on July 20, 2009, 10:17:33 pm
You need to get the accounts linked so that when you deposit at the ATM, you get a choice of which account the payments go into.  Mind you, I've no idea if they add up the number of cheques into each account to get the total.  I only ever deposit directly into the main account and have never yet exceeded 100 in a month.
BEWARE !!   Abbey seem to have a glitch whereby they miscount the cheques.  They've tried to charge me twice now in error.  Also, the accounting month starts on the date in the month when you started the account - NOT the 1st of the month necessarily.

  Carefully check your bank charges with Abbeyfor this, they have had a system problem that has been charging way too much, my last 2 months were 77-50 and 88-50, took me 7 phone calls to get it refunded.
   They have now refunded it a second time, I have rung them and informed them of their mistake, but also pointed out to them that I wont be ringing 7 times to get it sorted!
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: steve m on July 20, 2009, 10:57:36 pm
whats going to happen to the alliance & leicester account when they all go over to santander
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: leapstallbuildings on July 21, 2009, 07:07:24 am
You need to get the accounts linked so that when you deposit at the ATM, you get a choice of which account the payments go into.  Mind you, I've no idea if they add up the number of cheques into each account to get the total.  I only ever deposit directly into the main account and have never yet exceeded 100 in a month.
BEWARE !!   Abbey seem to have a glitch whereby they miscount the cheques.  They've tried to charge me twice now in error.  Also, the accounting month starts on the date in the month when you started the account - NOT the 1st of the month necessarily.

 Carefully check your bank charges with Abbeyfor this, they have had a system problem that has been charging way too much, my last 2 months were 77-50 and 88-50, took me 7 phone calls to get it refunded.
   They have now refunded it a second time, I have rung them and informed them of their mistake, but also pointed out to them that I wont be ringing 7 times to get it sorted!

Apart from the ease of making deposits, they are an awful bank.
No BACS reference numbers to help you find outr which customer has paid.  Also, recently, there have been problems with returned cheques.  They seem to have stopped sending them back.  A customer bounced a cheqon me over a month ago and I'm still triing to find out which customer it was from.
I've now told Abbey to either send me the cheque (or a copy) or refund my money.
I now have managed to get the email address of the CEO (by a bit of luck) and may weell use it.
I've no idea which customer bounced the cheque on me.  Going by the amount, it could be any one of half a dozen.  I may have even done a follow-up clean since then.
It's pretty bad when I get so sick of them that I end up swearing down the phone but they are the most frustrating bank to deal with.
Abbey are thieves !!
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: dave0123 on July 21, 2009, 12:04:56 pm
Quote
We are with A&L cheques ARE free no limit, no time limit.


Im with them and i get charged 5.00 a month for the account but i can put in as many cheques as i like. it becomes free after u pay in so much money i think its 1000 a month.

is this what you mean or is yours no charge at all?
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: Alistair@AWC on July 21, 2009, 12:53:05 pm

Im with them and i get charged 5.00 a month for the account but i can put in as many cheques as i like. it becomes free after u pay in so much money i think its 1000 a month.

is this what you mean or is yours no charge at all?

I'm pretty sure its the same account if you pay in less than £1,000 in a month they charge you £5 or £10 for that month
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: dave0123 on July 21, 2009, 04:58:19 pm
yeah its 5.00 for me!

i usally put in over 1000 if i can if not i just transfer from my business savings account  ;)
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: Clive McDonald on July 21, 2009, 05:12:03 pm
Because of the rain i was able to meet s business bank guy and i opened the reserve account.

He says i can pay cheques into it with no charge.

Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: Sunshine/Cleaning on July 21, 2009, 05:23:46 pm
I would have thought that putting £1000 each month into the account would be easy for the month, It must be difficult to run a business on less than 12k per year.

Unless you dont put all the money in. In that case be careful because if inspected they will wonder why. The point of a business account is that all money goes into it.
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: dave0123 on July 21, 2009, 05:25:42 pm
no they wont... unless your a limited company


its all accounted for just i only put cheaques into the account not cash. nothing worng with that as its all accounted for on the books cash/cheques/bacs and so on.
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: Sunshine/Cleaning on July 21, 2009, 05:29:01 pm
Fair enough. ;)
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: dave0123 on July 21, 2009, 05:32:34 pm
 ;D
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: leapstallbuildings on July 21, 2009, 05:35:18 pm
Fair enough. ;)

Not all mine goes in either.  Sometimes, if cashflow is very tight, I need to keep some cash back to pay other bills.  I do keep good records of all income/expenditure though.
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: Sunshine/Cleaning on July 21, 2009, 05:50:39 pm
It's prob just my way of doing it. I pay everything in and set up a standing order for my wages. This stops me from over paying myself and leaves a good "buffer" for unexpected business expences. I can also hand on heart tell my wife that I don't have extra money (in my bills account) so there is no temptation to spend more that my wages. Occasionally as she is a partner she gets a payment from the account.

I also pay my Tax bill on a weekly basis so I hardly notice it going out. The return from investments are so small at the moment the "cost" is small. Plus in the past after saving up for 6 month, 1 I begrudge paying it and 2 there is always the danger that I may feel I need it for somthing else and then have trouble finding it when due.

Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: dave0123 on July 21, 2009, 11:46:08 pm
Quote
I also pay my Tax bill on a weekly basis

how do u pay ur tax weekly? id prefer that than at the end of every year in one go
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: Lakes and Pennine on July 22, 2009, 05:55:20 pm
Just looked up the A&L accounts on line. in small print at bottom it says free for 2 years. I was interested as I am now more than tempted to get all my bank charges back from Barclays and I dare say they will start charging for cheques after that. been 3 days and all cheques still not cleared
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: WCE on July 22, 2009, 06:31:21 pm
Just looked up the A&L accounts on line. in small print at bottom it says free for 2 years. I was interested as I am now more than tempted to get all my bank charges back from Barclays and I dare say they will start charging for cheques after that. been 3 days and all cheques still not cleared
Barclays wont refund fees for paying cash in, or putting cheques in etc ie account service charges that YOU argreed to when you opened the account however, they will repay overdraft fees and charges of those kind although unlike personal accounts it isn't covered by oft rules rather under commern law. Because of this business account claims were not subject to the hold put as was the case with personal accounts. However it isn't quite as clear cut as i am making it sound so your best bet is to look on money saving expert and search reclaim businees account charges - They have the whole proceedure explained in detail and also the template letters to send ;)
I dare say they will start charging for cheques after that.
It depends which package you signed upto and how long a free period it gave you. After that if I remember correctly they charge 60 p per cheque >:(
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: Clive McDonald on July 22, 2009, 06:43:08 pm
The subject of my original thread was that abbey business is free for life.However when you exceed 100 chqs pm as many of us have, you get charged 50p. IE 105 chq's in a monthly period accrues a charge of £2.50. For those with a lot of cheques you are soon in the £40 -£50 a month territory, so for people like me this is expensive.

Many of us trade and have accounts in a business name, so we can't just put some of the cheques in another account.(if you trade in your own name then of course you can).And the point of my thread was that i think i have found a solution. Open a reserve account and this takes your limit to 200 chqs before you meet charges.

Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: Alistair@AWC on July 22, 2009, 06:49:56 pm
Just looked up the A&L accounts on line. in small print at bottom it says free for 2 years. I was interested

Your right it does say that in the small print, but if you had read on it also says

"Once the 2 years free business banking period is over, you'll be transferred onto our Free Business Current Account, where you'll still continue to receive free business banking".  ::)

Regards

Al

Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: Window Cleaning Services on July 22, 2009, 06:53:16 pm
You need to get the accounts linked so that when you deposit at the ATM, you get a choice of which account the payments go into.  Mind you, I've no idea if they add up the number of cheques into each account to get the total.  I only ever deposit directly into the main account and have never yet exceeded 100 in a month.
BEWARE !!   Abbey seem to have a glitch whereby they miscount the cheques.  They've tried to charge me twice now in error.  Also, the accounting month starts on the date in the month when you started the account - NOT the 1st of the month necessarily.

  Carefully check your bank charges with Abbeyfor this, they have had a system problem that has been charging way too much, my last 2 months were 77-50 and 88-50, took me 7 phone calls to get it refunded.
   They have now refunded it a second time, I have rung them and informed them of their mistake, but also pointed out to them that I wont be ringing 7 times to get it sorted!
they took money out from my a/c too, twice in error, so the last time it happened i asked them to pay me back double the amount as it was their mistake, just like tesco refunds you double. They did, and i'm not complaining ;D
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: matt on July 22, 2009, 07:57:42 pm
Hmmmmmmmmmm


open 2 accounts and pay them into that, thats 200 cheques
Title: Re: Bank charge solution
Post by: WCE on July 22, 2009, 08:24:13 pm
The answer is to have a sister company and split the work between the two.